Gimme Some Sugar

Blog Roll

Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Fox News:
The federal government is hiring what it calls a “Behavioral Insights
Team" that will look for ways to subtly influence people’s behavior,
according to a document describing the program obtained by FoxNews.com.
Critics warn there could be unintended consequences to such policies,
while supporters say the team could make government and society more
efficient.

While the program is still in its early stages, the document shows
the White House is already working on such projects with almost a dozen
federal departments and agencies including the Department of Health and
Human Services and the Department of Agriculture.

"Behavioral sciences can be used to help design public policies that
work better, cost less, and help people to achieve their goals," reads
the government document describing the program, which goes on to call
for applicants to apply for positions on the team.

The document was emailed by Maya Shankar, a White House senior
adviser on social and behavioral sciences, to a university professor
with the request that it be distributed to people interested in joining
the team. The idea is that the team would “experiment" with various
techniques, with the goal of tweaking behavior so people do everything
from saving more for retirement to saving more in energy costs.

Needless to say, the rightwing blogosphere believes this is theworstthingever!
Who knows, maybe they’ll manage to work themselves up into a
Benghazi-style hysteria over it. In any case, it’s definitely a
Benghazi-style scandal — i.e., not a scandal at all.

How long as government been doing this sort of thing? Pretty much
forever. From the Forest Service’s Smokey Bear campaign to the
Department of Health and Human Services ads raising awareness of various
health issues, government tries to shape behavior without resorting to
legislation.

I suppose the freak out may be over the fact that the White House isn’t
trying to legislate behavior. After all, that’s the “limited
government" conservative approach. From when you’re allowed to be free
of pregnancy to who you’re allowed to love and marry, rightwingers are
all about micromanaging people’s lives.

Maybe they look at efforts to shape behavior like this and think, “You’re doing it wrong!"